Kearny Link Is Finished, Reducing Trip by Rail

By RICHARD PEREZ-PENA

Published: May 28, 1996

KEARNY, N.J., May 22—
On Jan. 1, 1838, the Morris and Essex Rail Road began passenger service between Newark and Morristown. More than 158 years later, on June 10, passengers on that line will finally be able to ride into Manhattan without changing trains.

In the marshes of Kearny, New Jersey Transit has just completed a link between its Morris and Essex lines and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, allowing trains from a wide swath of northern New Jersey to go directly to Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station for the first time. It is the most significant addition to the region's commuter rail network since New Jersey Transit took over the remnants of the Morris and Essex and other long-dead railroads in 1983.

For thousands of residents of Morris, Essex, Union and Somerset counties who commute by rail to the city, the connection will eliminate the need to go first to Hoboken and then transfer to PATH. The link will cut the trip into the city by 20 minutes. Railroad officials say the Kearny connection, which took three years and $70 million to build, will draw thousands of new riders and reduce the number of people who drive to work or take buses.

For the next two weeks, the transit agency will be testing all components of the new connection.

"This is a biggie," said Shirley A. DeLibero, executive director of New Jersey Transit. "Right now, a lot of people have to make a transfer or go far out of their way to get to the city by train, and that's a deterrent. This project eliminates that."

Each day, about 16,000 commuters take the Morris and Essex line's three branches, the Morristown, Gladstone and Montclair. Railroad officials estimate that at first, 2,000 people will take advantage of direct service to Manhattan, growing to 5,500 in two years.

"I've been pretty anxious for it to start," said Julia S. Johnson of Summit, a 27-year-old marketing associate at Home Box Office on the Avenue of the Americas at 42d Street. "Everybody's been talking about it for about a year, and I think a lot of people will take it. In fact, the only thing I'm worried about is I think they might not be prepared for how many people are going to take it."

New Jersey Transit officials say the new service, which they call Midtown Direct, will encourage people who work in mid-Manhattan to move to towns along the Morris and Essex line, and real estate executives say they are already seeing an increase in interest in the area.

On average, riders will pay slightly less to take the train to and from Penn Station than they would for combined fares for PATH and the trip to Hoboken, though some will pay more, depending on where they live. Train service will be considerably less expensive and often much faster than taking the bus.

For example, Ms. Johnson's monthly pass from Summit to Manhattan will cost $164, compared with the more than $200 a month she now pays to take the Lakeland bus line. The train trip is scheduled to take 39 minutes. Ms. Johnson said her bus ride lasts 40 to 45 minutes on a good day, but with traffic problems it can take as long as 90 minutes.

For more than a century, the Morris and Essex line and the line that is now the Northeast Corridor have been like two freeways that cross but do not have connecting ramps. What New Jersey Transit has done in Kearny, near the Passaic River, is to build those ramps.

The absence of such links is a hangover from the region's rail history, and it has long hobbled plans by New Jersey Transit, as well as the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North, to provide service to new destinations. Today's commuter lines were cobbled together from the remnants of private companies like the Penn Central, the Erie, the New York Central and the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western railroads, which, as competitors, often had little interest in cooperation.

New Jersey Transit, a state agency, is trying to close the gaps between the systems it inherited. It has built a connection that allows Northeast Corridor trains to go to Hoboken, giving easier access to lower Manhattan through PATH. Construction is under way on a transfer station in Secaucus, to allow riders on the Bergen and Main lines to go to Penn Station. Work could begin soon on a connection between the Montclair branch and the Boonton line, which would take Boonton line riders to Penn Station. A new line along the Hudson is on the drawing boards.

Compared with the others, the Kearny project was relatively inexpensive, though the $70 million price given by railroad officials is somewhat misleading. New Jersey Transit also spent more than $100 million on engines that could switch on the fly between the different voltages used on the Northeast Corridor and Morris and Essex lines.

New Jersey Transit's southern lines, the Raritan Valley and North Jersey Coast, merge with the Northeast Corridor, which takes trains directly to Penn Station. But most of its lines go to Hoboken. On weekdays, beginning on June 10, about 1 of every 5 Morris and Essex line trains will be part of what New Jersey Transit is calling Midtown Direct.

On the Morristown and Gladstone branches, one train every half hour will go to Penn Station at rush hour, and one every hour at off-peak times. Weekend service to Manhattan is expected to start in September.

At first, there will be no direct service to Manhattan on the Montclair Branch, though it is envisioned some years in the future. Until then, riders will have to transfer at Broad Street in Newark to catch Manhattan-bound trains, but even that arrangement would be faster and more direct than going to Hoboken and taking PATH.

"If it saves time, I would definitely do it," said Janet Schiller, 37, a producer for the "Today" program, who lives in Glen Ridge, on the Montclair Branch. "Gives me more time with my kids."

Summit and Millburn have so far resisted building additional parking to handle the expected increase in ridership, as New Jersey Transit has proposed, but officials in both towns said they expected to reach a compromise with the agency soon. Railroad officials say the lack of parking will not be much of an impediment, since only one-third of their passengers park and ride.

At rush hour, the new service will push the Northeast Corridor and Amtrak's tunnel under the Hudson River to their maximum capacity of 20 trains an hour, according to Alfred H. Harf, assistant executive director for planning at New Jersey Transit. When the line's signals are rebuilt around 2001, he said, its capacity will grow to 25 trains an hour.

Map: "COMING UP: A Quicker Ride to Midtown" shows a comparison ofmorning commuting times on rail/PATH and rail/Kearny Connection routes from several major stops along the Morris and Essex lines.